The Persistence of a Nuclear Threat
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leader Henry Abhart (Leon Ames) lacks the energy to employ his short-wave
radio, Brad assumes the task. Brad learns that being a man is really about
assuming responsibility for others, something his father failed to teach him. Yet,
Carol loves Tom, and she spends time screening home movies of an idyllic
suburban family life tom asunder, even if the reality of that life as revealed in
the first third of the film had its shortcomings.
T esta m en t is also about children and what the world owes them. The
children of Hamlin, California are putting on a play version of The P i e d P ip e r .
Although the world is collapsing around them, the children persist in completing
and performing the play. The film’s message is quite apparent in the play’s final
line that the children will return when the world deserves them. The character of
the mentally challenged Japanese boy Hiroshi (Gerry Murillo) is perhaps
overdone in reminding viewers of what happened to the children of Hiroshima.
But it is difficult to understand how the disturbing scenes of Carol caring for the
dying Scottie can be interpreted as being banal or overly sentimental. Carol’s
sense of helplessness to save her child comes across poignantly as she attempts
to bathe Scottie in a wash basin, but before she can even complete the bathing
process, Scottie, suffering from radiation sickness, fouls the water with diarrhea.
This inability to save one’s child is every parent’s nightmare and not simply
limited to the white suburban community depicted in T estam ent.
But in the final analysis T esta m en t refuses to engage in despair. Shunning
the suicide solution, Carol and Brad celebrate what will undoubtedly be his last
birthday. Even when confronted with the harsh realities of a nuclear holocaust,
Carol and Brad demonstrate the perseverance of the human spirit. In agreement
with the more feminist reading of this film text, Rex Reed of the N e w York P o s t
praised the performance of Jane Alexander as Carol Wetherly, writing,
“Terrified, stubborn, refusing to give up on civilization, finally robotized by the
truth, she never lets the candle of hope bum out in her eyes. In a performance
that can truly be described as devastating, she shows, with her primal love for
her children, the best reason of all why we must never allow nuclear war to
happen.” Reed concluded his positive review by proclaiming, “ T esta m en t must
be seen by every person alive who still has a conscience, and if this were a sane
world it would be required viewing in Washington and Moscow. It is a
shattering accomplishment that will haunt you long after you leave the
theater.”14 Texts such as T esta m en t marked the high watermark of the nuclear
freeze and antiwar movement in the early 1980s, for nuclear political and film
discourses were unable to alter the course of American foreign policy. The
Reagan administration’s bellicose attitude toward the Soviets remained
unabated. On September 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines civilian jet, flying off
course over Sakhalin Island, was destroyed by Soviet planes. Despite
intelligence reports which indicated that the tragedy was the result of
incompetence and confusion, the President seized upon the situation to label the
Soviets as “inhuman, barbarous, and uncivilized.” The accompanying belief that
the United States needed to counter Soviet influence by assuming a larger